Swiss inflation slowed to below the 2% ceiling targeted by the central bank, offering limited reassurance to officials who have already signaled further tightening is likely.
(Bloomberg) — Swiss inflation slowed to below the 2% ceiling targeted by the central bank, offering limited reassurance to officials who have already signaled further tightening is likely.
Consumer prices rose 1.7% in June from a year earlier, down from 2.2% the previous month, as energy costs fell. Underlying inflation, which strips out such volatile elements, also slowed to 1.8%, according to Switzerland’s statistics agency.
The so-called core gauge had already fallen below the central bank’s ceiling last month, while the headline number now shows the weakest pace of price growth since January last year.
While Switzerland has already enjoyed some of the lowest inflation rates of the OECD since the energy crisis first began, the data will still provide some comfort to central bank officials that consumer prices aren’t yet spiraling out of control.
Even so, the SNB has said that another increase in borrowing costs is likely. Policymakers have forecast inflation to rebound to 2% by the end of the year, and then stay above that level until early 2026. That’s because of a wave of rent increases and electricity price hikes in the pipeline, as well as the rising cost of services.
“Switzerland is the first currency area where both the headline and the core inflation rate is back in the central bank’s target range,” said Karsten Junius, chief economist of Bank J Safra Sarasin Ltd. “However, this will not change the assessment of the SNB, as important price components are likely to change in the coming quarters.”
According to a separate report on Monday, the pace of deterioration in Swiss manufacturing activity stopped accelerating, with the purchasing managers’ index there rising to 44.9 points from 43.2 the previous month.
While that’s still below the 50-point threshold separating growth from contraction, it is the first increase in six months. Less encouraging for policymakers, the report pointed to underlying inflation trends.
“Evidently, upward pressure in service prices is not receding quickly despite the slowdown in growth,” the report by procure.ch and Credit Suisse said.
In her last public appearance as an SNB rate setter, Andrea Maechler said last week that underlying inflation pressures are “really persistent” and too high for fulfilling the institution’s “mandate of trust in money.”
Based on the European Union’s harmonized measure, Swiss inflation was 1.8% in June — that’s much less than in the surrounding euro area, where also the core reading recently ticked up again.
–With assistance from Joel Rinneby and Kristian Siedenburg.
(Updates with economist comment and PMI starting in sixth paragraph)
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